Big Time Ghost Whisperers
by TotallyLosingIt
Summary: All is not as it seems when the boys of Big Time Rush show up on Shawn's doorstep asking for his help. Treasure hunts, bad guys, danger, and… ghosts? Things are getting hinky again, but this time the boys are on Shawn's home turf!
1. Chapter 1

**Surprise! Miss me? I'm back, sorta, with a gift for my amazing, beautiful best friend Halo! Not only does she have me writing BTR fic again, but Psych, too! I haven't written Psych fic since... well, since the first story in this little series lol. That was for her birthday as well! Thank ya Halo!**

 **Enjoy!**

It was a bright and sunny morning, a perfect start to an ordinary day… and Shawn and Gus were bickering.

"I _told_ you, Shawn, this is the last time I'm pitching in for this bill! We're partners! You're supposed to help every once in a while, you know!"

"I do help," Shawn countered, just a touch of defensiveness in his smirk. "I solve the cases, I get the money, I spend the money-"

Gus' nostrils flared. "We are _partners,_ Shawn! You need me to solve your cases and you know it. Who else would back you up, drive you places, and save your sorry ass once a week?"

"Okay, last time didn't even count," Shawn protested. "I did not need CPR. I slipped into the kiddie pool, Gus-it was like two feet of water."

"It's instinct!" Gus snapped.

A look of pure rebellion curled in Shawn's eyes, and he opened his mouth…

And then the doorbell rang.

Gus looked up at the ceiling, like he would find a mariachi band pounding off key to _La Cucaracha._ Grinding his teeth, he said, "We have a doorbell?"

Shawn shrugged. "I spend the money."

His friend stalked outside to answer the door, while Shawn stayed at his desk watching him. They'd been going at it for almost a week now. Gus was upset and trying to hide it, and Shawn knew that the longer he did that, the worse the explosion was going to be. They had been friends since they were five years old-Shawn knew all his tells. Gus was upset. It wasn't the typical "Shawn Spencer has ruined me and I have got to get new friends" upset that he had every week or so. It was something deeper. He let it leak into every little thing he fussed over, and since Shawn couldn't get him to open up about it, he decided it needed a little coercing. A little provocation. If there was one thing Shawn was good at-and there were a great many things-it was being provocative.

"Ack- _Shawn!"_

Well that didn't sound good. Shawn leapt from his chair, charging forward to help his best friend.

The next second was filled with noise and pain as someone small and full of flailing limbs and screaming all but bowled him over. Shawn blinked blearily at the ceiling, wondering if Gus had taken in some homicidal chickens again, and then a bronze, ruddy face popped into his vision.

"Oh whoops," he exclaimed, fixing the hockey helmet on his head. "Sorry, Shawn! I tripped."

"Is this payback?" Shawn mumbled. Carlos Garcia cocked his head to the side, before shrugging and giving him a hand up.

"Carlos, wait up!" Kendall Knight stuck his head through the doorway. Seeing the mess his friend had made in his urgency to find the psychic, he shook his head and leaned with his back against the pane to let the other two members of their band in.

Logan Mitchell looked slightly out of breath as he stumbled inside, clutching at his chest like it was on fire. "We have _got_ to put a leash on him!" he gasped out.

Kendall crossed his arms and looked at Gus as the last of their number, James Diamond, trudged in looking decidedly unhappy about having to run in clothes that weren't meant to be run in. "Hey. Nice to see you guys again. You okay?"

Gus, like Shawn, had been knocked over by the whirlwind that is Carlos Garcia. The young Latino was bouncing around, full of nervous energy and excitement. He was firing off questions and explanations too fast for even Shawn to comprehend, and the psychic just blinked at him until Logan came over to pinch Carlos hard on the arm.

"Ow!" he complained. "Logan, that hurt!"

"You need to calm down or you'll hyperventilate," Logan scolded. Carlos imitated the words as soon as his back was turned, and Shawn finally recovered.

"Big Time Rush! Long time no see, buddy! How you guys been?"

"Peachy," said Kendall, at the same time Logan said "Pretty good" and James said "Have you _seen_ the news lately?" and Carlos said "Oh my God you will never believe what happened Shawn it was so crazy and I knew as soon as I saw it that it was haunted and I did some research like a real detective and-"

Logan reached over and clapped a hand over Carlos' mouth. This, unsurprisingly, did not stop the Latino from talking, but it did slow his rambling down a bit.

Shawn looked at Gus, and then at the boys.

Kendall said, "Carlos thinks the hotel we're staying at is haunted."

Logan said, "He found out the original owner of the hotel died like a hundred years ago in a suspicious fire that almost burned down the whole building."

James said, "And now his ghost is haunting the halls, looking for the guy who murdered him and where he'd hidden his treasure!"

"Treasure?" Shawn said, a glint in his eye.

"Ghost?" Gus paled immediately, an impressive feat considering he was black.

Carlos nodded vigorously, and Logan let him go. He took a deep breath. "And we _saw_ him!"

"Oh God," Gus muttered.

Shawn held his hands up in an X. "Okay, time out. I have rules, you guys. You can't just waltz in here and demand I take a case…"

The boys' faces fell, and Shawn grinned, opening his fridge. "Without pizza!"

Only Kendall looked unaffected by the psychic's joke as they gathered the leftover pizza and plopped themselves on a couch that was not designed for four hockey-playing pop stars. Shawn caught Gus as he turned and said quietly, "I can take care of this one."

Gus glared at him. "Partners," he said.

Well, that was both exactly and not at all what Shawn expected. Gus usually protested loudly and mercilessly about being dragged onto cases. But if Shawn was going to fix whatever it was with Gus that was broken, he was going to have to push him out of his comfort zone. So he flashed his friend a knowing smirk and went to sit across from the boys.

"Okay!" Shawn rubbed his hands together and leaned forward. "What've we got?"

Kendall spoke this time, having been elected to tell the complete story. "We're doing a small West Coast tour to broaden our fan base, because sometimes we leave some people out on our bigger ones. We're supposed to start here in Santa Barbara tomorrow night." He grimaced. "Griffin didn't really like the idea of us doing this by ourselves, so we're the ones doing the promoting and renting venues and stuff. He gave us a pretty small budget, which is why we're staying at this hotel."

"The Grand Junction Hotel," Logan supplied, taking up the story. "It isn't that bad. It's really big, but nobody ever stays there. We got the penthouse suite really cheap. Apparently nobody but the maid's been up there for months."

Carlos bounced on the couch, eyes alight with the promise of adventure. "Because it's haunted!"

Shawn looked to Kendall and Logan, the level-headed ones in the group. Logan sighed and Kendall pursed his lips. Neither of them protested the statement.

Oh boy. Shawn turned his attention back to Carlos. "You said you saw him?"

"Well, sorta." Carlos fiddled with the straps on his helmet. "It was fine when we got there, but then we went to explore the hotel and when we came back, everything in the room was broken! Gustavo thought we did it, but we didn't." The last bit was said with a pout.

Kendall took another turn. "The lamps were knocked over, the mirrors were broken, the faucets were left running… it was a mess."

Shawn looked at Gus and saw that his friend had reacted the same way. This wasn't just a dreamy kid seeing things. Either there really was a ghost haunting the hotel… or the boys were in trouble.

"Weeeell," Shawn said, stretching out the word with a grin. "That sure sounds like the perfect case for a psychic like me."

Carlos nodded again. Shawn was starting to think the kid he'd met a year ago had been mysteriously replaced with a bobblehead. "That's why I thought you'd be perfect," he declared. "Plus, you live here! We got some free time today 'cause Gustavo kicked us out while he's trying to find us a new room and help pay for damages. He told us this was strike two or we'd never get suites again."

"What happened the first time?" Gus asked.

Logan grimaced and rubbed his leg. "Please don't ask."

"I checked out the hotel's history and everything," Carlos steamrolled on, not to be outdone. "It used to be really popular, 'cause it was one of the tallest buildings in the area. Lots of people came to stay 'cause it's a port city, and then the gold rush happened and it was turned into a luxury hotel. It burned down in 1892, but nobody knows why. They rebuilt it, and then his son took it over, and now his son and daughter run the hotel, but nobody goes there anymore." He pitched his voice lower. "Accidents keep happening."

"They should've closed it down years ago," Logan muttered.

James started bouncing, looking a lot like Carlos as his dark eyes lit up. "The hotel was mostly where a lot of people came to stay during the gold rush back in the 1850s, and there were tons of fights and murders that took place. Lots of gold went missing. It was blamed on a small time bandit named Ricardo Valencia, who had showed up super rich with gold in his pockets, but Carlos and I think the guy who owned the hotel stole it and hid it."

"You have no proof," Logan pointed out. He turned to Shawn. "They have no proof! And even if that is what happened, what makes you think it's still at the hotel?"

Kendall rubbed his eyes as his friends started arguing again. Shawn took sympathy on him. "And what do you think, Kenny?"

"Wow," the blonde exclaimed, "that is so not my name. And I don't know what to think. We haven't even told you the rest of the story. There's one more thing."

Carlos reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He unfolded it, shoved it into Logan's face first and sticking a tongue out at him in the process, and then handed it to Shawn and Gus.

Shawn squinted. "Huh. Is that-"

"A map," Carlos said, eyes glittering. "It's a treasure map."


	2. Chapter 2

**You ever have a set, solid plan of what you want to do with a story all mapped out in your head, and when you start actually writing it the thing just veers off in a completely different direction? Yeah. This is that story. Except now it's more like jello.**

 **Enjoy!**

"Okay, it's a piece of a treasure map," Carlos amended.

Logan scoffed. "We don't know if it leads to treasure, Carlos!"

Shawn scanned the map, noticing that they were both correct-the map wasn't complete, and the words scribbled on the sides didn't make any sense.

" _I have failed my father,"_ he read aloud. " _Fourteen eyes and fourteen mouths, but heed my warning: do not go up there. Do not go up there."_

"What the heeee-ck does that mean?" Gus' attempt to cover his blunder went unnoticed by the boys.

"No idea!" Carlos said with a smile. "That's why we came to you. So? Will you take the case?"

Shawn grimaced. "Are you going to try to pay me with buttons again?"

"Actually-"

"No," Gus interrupted, giving Shawn a glare. "You know we don't like to charge you boys. It's not what a _good_ person would _do,_ right Shawn?"

Ooh, that was strangely pointed. Shawn filed that away for later.

Kendall rolled his eyes and reached into his pocket. "We don't really have any money to spare," he admitted, pulling out five pieces of paper. "But we got you guys some tickets to our show tomorrow, if that's okay?"

Gus squeaked and made grabby, lurching movements towards the papers without actually going anywhere. Shawn stared at him and then took the tickets and plopped them in his hands, ignoring his friend's, "I really shouldn't take these Shawn don't let me take these I don't need these, Shawn, Shawn, _Shawn-"_

Shawn let out a dramatic sigh, stretching his arms over his head. "Look, guys, I'm gonna have to check the schedule and get back to you-aw, who am I kidding, we're in."

"Yes!" Both Carlos and James leapt to their feet and started jumping up and down on the couch. Logan and Kendall sat trapped in the middle. Logan looked a bit panicked. Kendall looked a bit bored.

Shawn held out a fist behind his back to Gus. He was pleased when his friend bumped it.

"Okay!" Shawn pulled them back to Earth, rubbing his hands together as the boys sat down. "So, first thing's first: where did you find the map?"

Kendall took that one. "We were searching through the broken stuff. It was in one of the picture frames on the wall. The picture had a big ship on it, and it landed on the bed so we picked it up and the paper fell out."

"That's weird," Gus commented, finally sitting on the other side of Shawn. "Has that picture been there since the hotel burned down?"

The boys looked at each other, shrugged, and looked back at Gus. "Dunno," they said together.

Shawn pursed his lips. "And there were no other pictures with hidden map pieces inside?"

Again, the boys were in unison when they chorused, "Nope."

"That's scary," Shawn commented. "Gus, why don't we ever talk in unison like that?"

"I'd rather not know what goes on in that brain, Shawn."

"That's fair." Shawn turned back to the boys. "Okay, so let's just sum this up real quick: your hotel room was trashed and you found a piece of a map behind a picture."

"You did some research and found out the hotel burned down a long time ago, and there was a rumor that the original owner had stashed some gold somewhere on the property," Gus continued.

"And because of a long series of accidents in the hotel, you're pretty sure it's haunted."

"And we only have a day to figure this entire thing out before you guys have to leave?" Gus finished.

"More like a day and a half," James said.

"We are not missing sound check again," Logan said with a glare.

"Technically we didn't miss it last time," Kendall pointed out.

"Whose side are you on?" Logan demanded, exasperated.

Shawn studied the map. It looked like part of a blueprint, but he wasn't sure if it was the hotel the boys were staying at.

"Well," he declared, "first things first: let's go check out this hotel of yours."

They walked, knowing from experience that Shawn invading Gus' Blueberry was bad enough without adding four growing boys to the mix. Gus practically had a heart attack the first time they tried.

It was a cool summer day, a break from the usual weather they'd been having. The sun had tucked itself behind the clouds enough for them to walk without feeling like they were going to melt straight through the sidewalk. Carlos talked about a mile a minute, only Shawn attempting to keep up and maintain the conversation. Logan had fallen back to Gus as they pored over their usual common ground: medicine. Kendall was walking a step behind James, whose mutterings were more focused on how he really should've dressed better if he'd known they'd be hiking through the city this morning.

Shawn had managed to glean some more information from Carlos during the half hour trek. The Latino boy bounced around, full of pent up energy that never seemed to dissipate.

"The owners are super old," he announced, fiddling with the straps on his helmet. "They're brother and sister. They inherited the hotel from their dad. And guy's, like, super grumpy and rude. He's like Mr. Bitters that one time when James stole his toupée and accidentally dropped it in the pool." He nodded, solemn. "It clogged the pool filters. His face was red for, like, three days."

"That was not my fault!" James piped up from behind them.

Carlos shrugged. "Anyway, we tried to ask them some questions. The lady was nicer. She likes Kendall."

"Oh does she?" Shawn tossed over his shoulder with a grin.

"She thinks I need a haircut." Kendall shuddered. "She wants to do it herself."

"That's how we got to talk to her." Carlos regarded Kendall for a second. "Kendall, you're like a key!"

Kendall face contorted in horror. "Carlos, if you're thinking what I think you're thinking-"

But Carlos had already moved on. "She told us that even though it's hard to get people to stay there anymore, the building is paid off? She said that it's been in their family so long, they own it now and they can't just sell it." Carlos took off his helmet and scratched at his head before replacing it. "She says that she wants to sell it, or turn it into a store or something, but her brother refused."

"Interesting," Shawn mused. "Think they know about this treasure of yours?"

Carlos nodded enthusiastically. It's a wonder how he kept his head on all the time. "Milfy's the one who told us!"

Gus choked. " _Milfy?"_

"Milfred," Logan explained, patting his shoulder. "Don't worry, we all had the same reaction."

Carlos didn't seem to understand what the fuss was about. "Anyway," he said loudly, "Milfy told us that's the reason she wants to turn the hotel into some sort of historic location, because it had a bunch of stories surrounding the treasure and stuff. But Manny-her brother-he said he'd die before 'grubby tourists take our family's treasure.'"

Logan looked about at the end of his rope. " _Maybe_ he was being sentimental about it, Carlos. You ever think about that?"

"Logan," Kendall interrupted, "sentimental is the exact last thing that man is."

Carlos stuck his tongue out at Logan, the other boy throwing his hands up and almost whacking Gus in the face.

Shawn resisted the urge to pinch his nose. He always felt old hanging around the boyband. "Hey, you guys aren't staying alone in this hotel, right?"

Kendall answered that one. "Actually, we're just touring with Gustavo and Kelly. My mom and sister stayed back at the Palm Woods, since this is only supposed to be a week and a half long."

"Gustavo and Kelly are staying in the room down the hall," James offered. He frowned. "He kicked us out. Kelly said he needs to "detox" from us."

"I know the feeling," Gus muttered. Logan hit him in the arm.

"Oh look," Carlos announced, interrupting what looked to be an impending slap war between them. "We're here!"

The hotel itself was three stories, but it was wide, taking up half the block with its bulk. It was old, very old-mostly built of sturdy, dark brown wooden beams and bricks to reinforce the foundation. It had obviously had some work done-the windows looked new, at least, and the parking lot had evidence of being evened out at one point. Even in the morning sunlight, it loomed above them, and Shawn could easily imagine this place being haunted.

In other words, he loved it.

"That's our room," Logan said, pointing up at the third story at the right hand corner.

Shawn frowned at it-there were two windows on either side of the corner.

Before he could make further note on that, however, the front doors of the hotel slammed open and a man stormed out. He was _ancient,_ although that may have been the excessive frown lines aging his face, the wrinkles almost swallowing his beady brown eyes. His hair was long and stringy gray, thinned at the top but hanging towards the back, and though he was dressed in an ill fitting business suit, he looked like he cared even less about his appearance than his frightening demeanor.

His eyes fell on them and, if possible, his scowl deepened. He sped up, stomping towards them with all the force of a herd of stampeding rhinos.

"That's it, you Big Time _Brats!"_ he hollered. "This is _all your fault!"_


End file.
